Mr. Parrinello, of Stow, is president of the Commonwealth Patient Center Inc., one of 100 applicants statewide for a medical marijuana dispensary license. In February, the state Department of Public Health declined to grant his group a provisional license.

"We were five points off from a successful bid. Five points," he said. "It needs to be re-examined." He and his partners proposed building a grow facility and dispensary at 24A Jolma Rd. in Worcester's Grafton Hill neighborhood. (The property was the long-time home of the Saltus Press, which closed in August 2010).

He and his partners have pored over the DPH's scoring of their application, and believe it was underscored. Mr. Parrinello can also point out numerous problems in some of the successful applicants — from undisclosed criminal records and bankruptcies to unsuitable growing locations, and more — if you care to weed through his allegations.

The DPH is running background checks on all of the successful applicants, and is scheduled to make an announcement soon on which applicants will actually be given licenses to grow and sell medical marijuana.

Since the DPH announced its 20 finalists, three failed marijuana dispensary applicants — who applied for licenses in Lowell, New Bedford and Brockton — have filed lawsuits against the state. One lawsuit filed by CAS Foundation in Suffolk Superior Court alleged that the state's selection process was riddled by errors, and failed to detect misrepresentations, prior legal trouble, or conflicts that might have led to disqualification had they been revealed.

"It's been a very interesting, heart-breaking, process in dealing with the DPH," said Mr. Parrinello, choosing his words carefully. He still holds out hope that his application might win a license.

The DPH gave its only provisional marijuana dispensary license in Worcester to Good Chemistry of Massachusetts Inc., a company that has grown and dispensed marijuana in Colorado since 2009. Good Chemistry proposed to place its Worcester dispensary in a storefront currently occupied by a dance studio at 9 Harrison St. The company plans to grow its marijuana plants at an industrial property in Fitchburg, although it has not publicly discussed where that site will be.

Good Chemistry also received provisional approval for a dispensary in Boston, but has run into some problems with its community support. Boston City Councilor Stephen Murphy claimed to The Boston Globe that his letter of support was based on false information from Good Chemistry, and that he never would have supported the dispensary's proposed Boston location.(In Worcester, Good Chemistry received a non-opposition letter from Mayor Petty and from then-city manager Michael V. O'Brien).

Mr. Parrinello, seizing on this perceived weakness in Good Chemistry's bid, has written several letters to the DPH, pointing out that his group's application has a letter of support from Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty.

Mayor Petty initially wrote a letter of non-opposition. But after meeting with Mr. Parrinello and his team in November, he wrote in a separate letter, which he concluded, "I wish now to state my support for their application."

Mr. Parrinello also pointed out he and his team met with the Grafton Hill Neighborhood Association and received their support; that the location on Jolma Road satisfies all Worcester municipal zoning requirements; and that he met with officials from the city's board of health and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and representatives of Worcester Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis and Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early. (He does not say that the city's board of health, or the sheriff, or the DA support his group's proposal — just that they met).

"We got out into the community, we let people know what we were doing, and we pledged to work with them," he told me.

The lowest-scoring application that received DPH approval scored five points higher than Mr. Parrinello's group. But his group scored 12 points below Good Chemistry, 144 to 132.

The two applications were basically even through the first five categories, which took into account corporate background, business management experience, financial condition, physical structure and staffing.

But where Good Chemistry pulled away from CPC was in the DPH's assessment of "operations and programmatic response requirements," which covers things like security, incident management, and emergency planning.

Good Chemistry scored 49 out of 57 points in this category; CPC scored 37. It was the difference between their total scores.

In my opinion, it is unlikely that Good Chemistry would lose its provisional license over the community support issue. It also seems unlikely that the DPH will agree to rescore applications it already reviewed. What's done is done.

Mr. Parrinello is betting that the DPH's background checks on some of the winning bidders will lead to disqualifications — which could breathe new life into denied applications like his.

Aaron Nicodemus can be reached at aaron.nicodemus@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter at @anic89.

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